Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

There are many questions that Charles Alvin Johnson may never see answered about the death of his daughter Regina, who was strangled in 2006.

What raced through her head as she lay bound, realizing she would die? How could a 110-pound woman have provoked such rage?

Who killed her?

"I'd like to know what kind of animal we're dealing with," said Johnson, 63, of Denver. "We find the guy, we convict the guy and we put him away for life. That suffering part would bring me happiness."

Johnson and more than 500 others who have lost friends and family to unsolved murders are pushing a plan to end Colorado's death penalty and spend the savings to investigate the state's more than 1,300 cold cases.

The bill, which House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, said he plans to introduce next week, has already sparked opposition from the state's top prosecutors and promises to prompt a political firefight. It threatens to put Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, a former district attorney and a devout Catholic, in tricky territory as well.